


Got A Woman At Home, She Treats Me Well

by Tonight_At_Noon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hospitals, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Near Future, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), me screwing with canon while i can't sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 13:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20310400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonight_At_Noon/pseuds/Tonight_At_Noon
Summary: Darcy watches it happen on TV, and when the dust clears, she is left clinging to the hope that he survived.





	Got A Woman At Home, She Treats Me Well

**Author's Note:**

> It's 4 am. I can't sleep. I'm probably messing with the serum's canon, but I'm too sleepy to care.
> 
> Title is a line from "She Treats Me Well" by Ben Howard.
> 
> Enjoy this mess.

Today, she feels like just another fan glued to the television - on her knees in the lounge, her eyes burning from how close she is to the screen. Her legs went numb ages ago. Her back screams at her to find a new position. But she stays where she is, breathing staccato breaths as she witnesses - through glass and wire - his mind and body grow weaker. His movements are not as coordinated as they should be. His decisions fighting against the caped man are all wrong. It's like he's forgotten all of his training. Like this is his first time battling a threat. It's like he's a frightened child, because even though he and the flying man are the same size, Bucky looks so much smaller. Bucky, in the years since she's known him, loved him, has never looked small. Not even when they first found each other shortly after their return from the purple devil's population control scheme. 

And maybe it's because she's watching it all unfold on the shitty 30 inch TV they stole from the side of the road for a laugh, but she really feels that if she pushed her hand through the screen, she could squash him like a bug. And that intrusive thought disturbs her. Because she's been telling him for months, for years, that he needs to slow down. That he's not as strong as he once was. That all of the trauma he's so unwilling to face has twisted him and bent him so badly that he can barely lift their sofa anymore for when she needs to hoover underneath it.

But he's become addicted to saving a world he was trained to destroy. So, he brushed her concerns off with half-hearted smiles, with fanciful words. With powerful kisses that remain with her even now as she watches his arm go out and miss its intended target. 

The bad guy takes advantage of Bucky's latest fumble, and with her lip caught in a vice grip by her teeth, Darcy Lewis witnesses the bionic man be lifted into the air with blood pouring from his eyebrow, his skull, his mouth, his chest, and dropped like a dog's raggedy, limp chew toy. 

Her heart plummets. It sinks like a stone into her stomach. Like Bucky as he flies through the air and lands silently on the ground below. They must have cut the sound from the live feed, because even the commentators have gone quiet. But the on-ground camera men are still listening to their ear pieces, because they crowd around the broken, bloodied body. And Darcy almost doesn't recognise him through the fuzzy quality of their television. It could be anybody, really. But it isn't. It's Bucky, and she knows it's Bucky, and when the footage stops, when the screen goes black before the commentators in the studio return, their faces split open in shock, Darcy releases a strangled sort of cry. Her fists bash against the glass. The image wobbles. But maybe that's just her tears. Or maybe it's the commentators. Maybe it's a side effect of watching someone die. Your body can't handle it, so it warps and ripples.

Not that he's dead.

Darcy leans back. Away from the television. From the mute men. It takes her a moment to realise she is sobbing, and another moment to realise that she needs to get out there. She needs to find where they've taken him. 

On the streets outside their their apartment building, everyone she crosses paths with is buzzing. Like bees. Like electric fences. She hears his name spoken as she blindly passes through crowds of mildly interested people, and each time she hears it is like a shock to her dead heart. They've divided themselves into three teams from what she can gather on her frantic walk to the hospital:

1 - Bucky Barnes survived.

2 - Bucky Barnes survived, but his time is running out as they speak.

3 - Bucky Barnes is dead.

Darcy has to stop several times to dry heave against the side of a building. 

"I know he's here. Please, let me see him," she says for the third time since reaching the hospital lobby. She elbowed her way past camera crews and morbidly curious bystanders. 

But the man at the front desk claims to not know anything. Claims that even if the fallen soldier is inside, she, as a civilian, has no right to see him.

"You don't understand," she says, her throat barely able to get the words out, "he's my partner."

"Oh?" questions the greying man, who surely never imagined himself working behind the front desk at a hospital this late in his life. "And what's your superhero name?"

"Not," she says through her teeth, her blood boiling, "that kind of partner."

The man's eyes widen. "I would've believed you more if you'd lied about being a superhero," he says, looking her up and down. She is dressed in her pyjamas. One of Bucky's t-shirts and a pair of leggings. "Pretending to be a dying man's girlfriend is low, ma'am."

Dying.

Dying. As in, _not dead_. 

Darcy's vision goes fuzzy. She grips the edge of the desk as a wash of relief bathes her. 

"Please," she begs, fumbling with the chain around her neck. She unlocks the clasp and opens the golden oval-shaped locket. She shows the man the photograph inside - the photograph of her and Bucky pretending to be lovers in a time of war.

She doesn't need to look at the picture to know exactly how it looks. It was a party on Coney Island, something to celebrate a war Bucky couldn't remember. She forced him to go. Of course, because he never went anywhere by choice unless it was to a battlefield. With his hair and beard recently sheared, he was nearly unrecognisable as the Bucky Barnes the world had come to know. But that suited their purpose - to go into the park as two regular people on a date. He had found a replica of the uniform he wore during the real thing, and while she spent so much of the day worrying about triggering a locked memory that had the power to send him spiralling, he eventually took her aside and convinced her with kisses that he was fine. 

They danced, poorly, to music from the era that Bucky ended up humming in her ear. They played old-style carnival games. They are food. 

Near the end of the night she dragged Bucky to one of the photo booths spread about the park. Reluctant at first, after one shot he got into it. Her favourite photograph from the booth was one of them with their cheeks pressed together. Her hand rests on his other cheek, and they're both smiling. 

That Christmas, to keep up with the game of them being lovers torn apart by the ravages of war, he got the photograph made into a locket. 

And now look at them. Lovers torn apart by the ravages of war. 

The man behind the desk closes the locket and hands it back to her. His face grows solemn. 

He believes her. 

He believes her, and the outlook isn't good, and that is why he looks at her like she has come all this way just to say goodbye. 

"ICU. Floor 6. Room 11," he says, rummaging through a drawer and pulling out a visitor's pass. "He's not in good shape, ma'am."

Darcy nods. Because she can't speak. She departs the desk and goes to the elevator. Inside, she presses the corresponding button and the silver doors close, leaving her utterly alone.

The ICU is a busy floor. Darcy flashes her badge to several skeptical nurses, one of whom is kind and free enough to show her the room. 

"It's not pretty, miss," he warns. 

She knows. She goes inside anyway. 

She has seen him bleeding before. Seen him bruised. Those wounds all heal quickly. By the next morning, it's as if nothing happened. 

But this is different. This is not supposed to happen.

Bucky lies in a bed against the wall in a dark room lit only by the flashing, beeping machines. Tubes run out of his body. Or into. She isn't sure. His skin is black in most places, and one leg is wrapped in a cast. If his externals aren't broken, then that must mean his insides are. Shattered ribs. Collapsed lungs. Internal bleeding. 

The room spins, round and round like she has unknowingly stepped onto a zero gravity machine. Reaching out for the nearest wall, Darcy sags against it, her eyes shutting. She hates this. God, she hates it. She hates that there are still evil people in this post-Decimation world. That there are no other willing fighters in the vicinity. Not even Sam, who knew when it was time to hand off the shield. And she can't hate Sam for that, because she has tried getting this silly man to do the same thing. But he never listens to her. And now where is he - hooked up to dozens of machines, dying right before her eyes. She hates that he's forcing her to watch him die.

He isn't supposed to be able to die. Not like this. He survived a fall worse than this once. 

When her body and mind clear enough for her to stand upright, Darcy goes to the window above Bucky's bed and opens the blinds. She sits in the plush chair beside him. Reaching out to him, careful not to disturb the wires, she takes his hand. His flesh is damp. Cold, yet burning hot. She stares at him. Dried, cracked blood decorates his shadowed face. She squeezes his hand as tears start dripping down the bridge of her nose. 

And she waits. For whatever comes next. 

What comes next is a doctor, who is as startled to see Darcy as Darcy is to see her.

"I didn't think he had anyone," she says, and Darcy has to explain how, but not why, they keep their relationship a secret.

This doctor, and the next, and the next explain that Bucky's body is not healing the way it should. That his chemistry has changed. That the serum the Nazis pumped into him has weakened. That he is more likely to die than survive. 

At least they don't sugarcoat it. 

They say that if he managed to survive the night, his chances of recovery expand exponentially, and Darcy accepts right then that she will get no sleep. 

The hours blend into one another. Darcy sits by Bucky's side in a disassociative daze. She is not there. Neither is Bucky. This is someone else's life. A lie she can only tell herself when there aren't nurses and doctors poking and prodding him. 

At one point, his blood pressure, or his heart rate, or his brain function, or _something_ falls so rapidly Darcy is thrown from the room as the doctors and nurses stick him with needles. Darcy catches sight of a new tube entering his chest between the sea of scrubs. A thick, yellow substance thinned by bright red blood pours out of him. Darcy doesn't breathe until the loud beeping stops and the doctors and nurses depart the room as if nothing happened. She returns to his side. His hand is even slicker now. 

Darcy is woken by sunlight. She rubs her eyes and finds the date on the whiteboard in the room. Four days since he arrived. Four days since she showered. Four days since she's been home - a friend from work has been delivering her clothes. At first, the hospital staff tried getting her to go home. But they gave up on that pretty quick. Visiting hours don't apply to her. 

And today is a good day. She catches the message on the board: Out of the ICU today!

Darcy smiles weakly. She has lived a lifetime in this small room. 

Not long after she wakes, a nurse comes in accompanied by a doctor to check on Bucky. While they work, she goes to the bathroom. Washes her face. Brushes her hair and teeth. Wipes her underarms with a wet paper towel. 

She will shower as soon as they transfer rooms. Until then, this is the best she can do.

She is living at the hospital by the time he wakes up. The staff know her by name, just as she knows them. She almost forgets to pay rent on their actual apartment until their landlord sends her a reminder. 

She's asleep when it happens. Sprawled out on the sofa bed in the larger room. In her dreams, as always, Bucky is there. Healthy. Happy - as happy as someone like Bucky could be. He says her name, and it comes out like a whisper. And it doesn't take her long to realise she isn't dreaming. Her eyes snap open. Rising from the bed so fast she has to sit down again, she crawls to the side of Bucky's hospital bed, her breath caught in her throat.

He says her name again. And she reaches out to him, and he's warm. Alive. The moment she touches his rough cheek, his eyes crack open. The bruises have all faded. The tubes are almost all gone. He looks like any other man lying in a hospital bed. And she feels like any other woman at the bedside of any other military man shattered by war.

With tears in her mouth, Darcy calls for the nurse, who calls for a doctor, who shoves Darcy out of the room. In the hallway, Darcy leans against the wall and stares at the ceiling. Hot tears rush into her hair, and she laughs, exhaling the breath she has been holding since she first tuned into the coverage of that fight almost two weeks ago. 

She can breathe again. She can smile again. 

Holding the locket tightly, Darcy thanks each and every god she can think of. She is still running through the list when the nurse says she can return to the room.

"I didn't know," he says the first night they're back in their apartment. He strokes her back as she rests against his chest. 

"But you do now?" she asks.

His fingers freeze. Darcy lifts her head, forcing him to look her in the eye. 

"It's strange," he says. "I've been invincible for so long." 

Darcy runs a finger down his shaved cheek. "You've never been invincible. This was always going to happen if you kept fighting." She can't hide the fraction of hurt in her voice. 

Lifting his neck slightly, Bucky presses his mouth to Darcy's. She melts into the kiss, because she thought she would never get to do this again. 

"I'm sorry," he says against her mouth. And it's nearly funny. He doesn't really know what he's sorry for. He remembers nothing from the battle. It frightened him when he first awoke. He said it felt like it used to, when HYDRA would stir him for another mission.

Darcy shakes her head. Grief for the man stolen decades before she knew him clutches her heart. "You're okay. That's what matters."

And instead of apologising more, Bucky deepens the kiss, and Darcy lets him, and she touches his healed skin, feeling more alive than she ever has before.


End file.
